These holy days

On Sunday we began the silent walk with Jesus to his cross.  Regardless of how we're feeling about the fruition of our Lenten observances, this is the week for our full attention. This is the week to push aside competing noise and keep vigil with our God - because this week marks the culmination of everything that we believe.  These are the holy days that give meaning to our very existence.

But this is also a time for family trips and Easter celebrations.  These realities, too, require our planning, preparation, and attention.   How can we accomplish both the temporal and the spiritual?  We are limited.  We are weak.  We are human.  This is precisely the point!  It is only in surrendering our frail humanity to God that we can be healed and share in the blinding light of the Resurrection.

We proclaim in our creed that our faith is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic."   Perhaps it is in this oneness and universality that we can find the way.  This week, every Catholic church in the entire world will celebrate the ritual of Three Days known as the Easter Triduum   The Days begin on Holy Thursday evening with the celebration of the Last Supper.  This liturgy continues on Good Friday as we remember Jesus' torture and death, and culminates on Holy Saturday with the blessing of fire and water, the retelling of salvation history, and the resurrection of our buried alleluias.  The three days include our Easter Sunday liturgies and close with Easter's Evening Prayer.  No matter where we are in the world; no matter what else calls for our attention, on these three days we need to make our way to church for at least part of this pilgrimage.  We need to face the God who dwells within; to remember and give thanks; to acknowledge our weaknesses and change our hearts; to be healed.

When I was a child, my grandmother taught us that God invites a wish from anyone visiting a church for the first time.  This little bit of folklore is a sweet reminder that God is always waiting for us. It created in my family the happy anticipation of finding a new (to us) church for our Sunday obligation whenever we were away from home.   If you're traveling for Easter or the Triduum, be sure to include your children in planning the church part of your itinerary.  When and where will you attend Mass?  What will you ask of God as a first-time visitor in this house?  My wish for you will be that your faith will "rise like a blazing fire" during this holiest of weeks.

Happy Easter.

Magic, miracles, and might

Leaving work last night, I ran headlong into a virtual army of minivans parked just outside the Reilly Hall doors.  They were positioned for exit in two orderly rows, cargo doors ajar.  Their drivers -mostly school dads - were making silent runs to and from the Parish Center with bins full of merchandise from the Auction storage area.  They were silent figures, focused intently on their loads, illuminated only by the moonlight and headlights.  It was an impressive sight.  The caravan would soon be leaving for the ICC, to hand off their baton to the display team who is performing their own version of magic today.

Well, it seems like magic, anyway - until the structure of this machine we call "The Auction" comes into clearer focus.  I wish you could all have a peek into the office during these weeks from January until this last day before the event.  Activity rises slowly at first until reaching fever pitch in the last weeks.  Donations come in via mail or are lovingly packaged and carried by donors.  Volunteers come and go on a daily basis - some twice a day - to pick up, check off, carry away.  Meanwhile, off-site, others are working relentlessly on acquisitions, raffles, data-entry, catalog, invitations, reservations and promotions.   Then there's the event itself - dinner, music, decorations, display, video, check-in, check-out, and, finally, collecting, packing, and hauling away the last remnants of our presence.  This massive project requires over one hundred well-coordinated hands and hearts.

When we back up to the planning stages, well, you get the picture.  This isn't really magic after all.  It's a combination of creativity and commitment; brains and brawn; and hours and hours of loving effort.  Why do we do it?  We do it because we value Catholic education, generally and this school, specifically.  We do it because we really enjoy working and and playing together. We do it because, as our Life Smart brand reminds us, "we believe in something greater than ourselves."

Maybe it's not magic, but I do believe it's miraculous; a tangible reminder that the the Holy Spirit is at work through us, supporting our mission and helping us discern a way forward in uncertain times.  When we come together in community, invite him into our collective being, and open ourselves to his will, there's really no limit to what we can accomplish.

With special and humble appreciation to the Killorans, the Kloehns, and the McGartlands for their amazing leadership of this phenomenal undertaking, I wish for all of you who have contributed your time, talent, or treasure to the success of this critical effort to know of my deepest gratitude for your passionate partnership.  May God continue to bless each of you - and all of us.

Habits of Mind

Today marks the close of our second trimester.  The report cards you will receive next Thursday are meant to give you a point-in-time snapshot of your children's skills relative to grade level course expectations.  The rubric scores for each course topic provide valuable information on your child's pattern of proficiencies relative to the specific targets they have been working toward over the past twelve weeks.  Easily lost in the clinical sequence of defining, instructing, and assessing these learning targets, however, is a reality we must keep ever before us; namely, that children are not assembly line products.  They develop at different rates and with distinct patterns of strength and challenge at each stage of development.  This means that although the target goal for each student in each topic of each course is to achieve mastery (a rubric score of 3), the reality is that few students will follow the same trajectory of skill development in all topics of all courses at the same time.  And that's OK - when we remember that our goal is not the grade, but the learning.

Pay attention to the overall picture of your child's academic progress so you will know what to celebrate and where your child will need some strategic support - but pay closer attention to the learner behaviors that will scaffold ongoing progress, and, therefore, the highest possible long term outcomes for your own uniquely beautiful child.

Our elementary report cards list a number of these behaviors - intermingled with personal and social growth skills.  In middle school, however, you're left to decipher these from the teacher comments.  Behaviors to support fall largely into three areas:

• Personal responsibility - This includes completing assignments, being on time, and bringing necessary materials home and to class 
• Learner engagement - Refers to focused participation in class and in learning experiences; listening actively, thinking deeply, answering and asking learning questions, and producing best effort/best work
• Productive group process skills - Include listening to, respecting, and building on the contributions of peers in discussion and work production, maintaining an outcome-based focus in partner work and small group work settings, and contributing meaningfully to a collaboratively-defined work product.

A well-respected pathway to these productive behaviors are the sixteen Habits of Mind defined by Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick.  The development of these personal habits is where success or failure fundamentally begins.  Refer to the habits to help strategize some ways to support your child in starting or continuing on a road to developing the behaviors that undergird academic progress - and intellectual development.

Additionally, a very specific practice correlated with academic achievement is reading. Much.  Regularly.  Deeply.  If daily reading and listening to reading are not already part of your family culture, consider adding this routine that may well be the single most important factor in academic success across disciplines.

Finally, it's good to periodically stop and remember that skills don't simply emerge with maturation.  Just as in athletics or music or any other area of skill development, academic accomplishment will come through a process we call a "gradual release of responsibility."  In the early years, adults must necessarily own the responsibility for shaping the development of the foundational habits and behaviors upon which academic learning rests.  It's only with incremental practice that we can expect to successfully release the responsibility for these behaviors to our children.  

Toward that end, consider structuring next week's report card review around the habits and learner behaviors.  Then, support your child in a strategic plan to develop just one or two of them.  These directed efforts, together with an active daily reading plan, will most certainly scaffold a new level of success in the months ahead!